"Clean Coal" film from the Coen Brothers

Clean Coal Air Freshener! - watch more funny videos

i-Team event tomorrow

Hi, Paul Miller and I were involved in a forum for the future/IDEO/local governments initiative called i-team to try a new approach to sustainability innovation. Really fascinating it was too, and I gained a lot of respect for local government 'innovativeness', it's not remotely the case that the private sector has a monopoly on good ideas. Lovely people too, with a strong public service ethic. The event where you can see the results is tomorrow afternoon, 2pm at the design council. Details and registration from here. Anyway if any local blog readers are free tomorrow afternoon would be lovely to catch up :J

New Report from Ethical Consumer on Ethical Clothing (and the other sort)

From the ethical consumer press release:

19 companies score worse than Primark in new ethical ranking of clothes shops

In 2008 stories about child labour and low wages at Primark suppliers
were splashed across the front pages. A new report from Ethical
Consumer magazine reveals that conditions for workers supplying 19 other
clothes retailers could be even worse.

“There's a real gap between the best and the worst performers on the
high street," says Ethical Consumer editor and report author Rob
Harrison. “Companies like Urban Outfitters, Moss Bros and BHS, score
zero in our survey. They appear to have no policies in place to prevent
abuses by suppliers. We urge consumers to vote with their wallets
against the exploitation of the people who make our clothes.”

The report also examines how poor ethical standards in the high street
have led to an explosive growth of smaller, more ethical, brands.
Companies specialising in Fairtrade and organic clothing have mushroomed
from around 20 in 2006 to nearly 250 in 2009.

Scoring best for ethics amongst the high street retailers are Monsoon
and Marks & Spencer. Scoring best amongst the ethical specialists were
Bishopston Trading, Gossypium and Traidcraft.

The best way for consumers to help address this issue is to buy only
Fairtrade and Organic labelled cotton clothing and reward those
retailers raising the bar on standards with their business.

Supply Chain Policies Ranking Table

Retailer Score out of 100
Monsoon 79
Marks & Spencer 74
Gap 71
Next 62
H&M 58
Tesco 53
Mango 49
River Island 45
Sainsbury’s 45
Primark 42
John Lewis 38
ASDA 37
Debenhams 37
New Look 37
Topshop 34
Zara 33
TK Maxx 20
Esprit 19
Matalan 16
Karen Millen 15
House of Fraser 11
Peacocks 10
FCUK 3
Ann Harvey 0
BHS 0
Dunnes 0
Edinburgh Woollen Mills 0
Moss Bros 0
Urban Outfitters 0

Draft article for The Marketer

Shopping and Green

Shopping and green have become closely intertwined in the last few years. When asked to name a green brand, many think of a grocery brand; Ben & Jerry’s, innocent, Ecover, even ASDA. The retailers – Walmart, M&S and others – have taken a lead on offering environmentally considered choices. The shopping bag, green points and initiatives on carbon, packaging and animal welfare have added loyalty and retailer wide dimensions to the increased availability of greener and more sustainable products. M&S even recently announced it is making moves into green energy. Meanwhile the overall phenomenon of green consumerism has been buoyant, with the Co-op bank’s Ethical Consumerism report valuing the overall UK ethical market at £35.5 billion, showing 15% growth in 2007.

A recent survey by Gyro International found that 28% of UK consumers are “willing to pay a premium for environmentally friendly products and services”. Over half of respondents said their purchasing was influenced by green considerations, and this was higher in areas like food where retailing concentrates. The survey also found that the greenwash issue is still a major factor, with 50% declaring themselves untrusting of company claims that their products and services are environmentally friendly. Anecdotal evidence (from talking to industry insiders) does suggest that the ‘premium’ green categories, for instance fresh organic produce, have been negatively affected by the recession. But the Gyro survey found that a roughly equal number (30% vs 32%) said they were actually more likely to pay a premium given the current economic climate, rather than less likely.

The 28% figure for the UK is slightly disappointing. In mainland Europe the figure was almost double this at 55%. But it is clearly a substantial segment. And actually public understanding of buying ‘environmentally friendly’ is overdue an overhaul. Many recent successes have been much more specific and authentic than this general claim suggests. And the key opportunity going forward has to be getting people more aware of the true environmental impact of the simple everyday things which they buy. They may still choose to buy 'cheap', but at least they will know the impact.

As I covered in The Green Marketing Manifesto the key tactic for retail green marketing remains customer education. The famous debacle of Iceland (frozen foods) going all organic in 2001 was in retrospect a failure of education – so that people really just get left wondering why their peas where suddenly a bit pricey. Whereas the 2006 M&S ‘look behind the label’ campaign which explained the thinking behind such innovations, was reported by banking retail analysts (Citibank) as ‘the most successful marketing campaign in the company’s history’. More recently we have seen a revolution in attitudes to buying chicken. Following the Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall documentaries, a survey by the RSPCA found that 75% of shoppers now consider animal welfare when buying chicken. This is more specific than generic ‘environmental friendly’ claims. And it shows the potential for empowered consumers to dictate to markets, with Sainsbury and others responding by offering only birds farmed to high objective standards. Fair Trade (Tate & Lyle) and Rainforest Alliance (PG Tips) have shown how these sorts of specific narratives can reinforce the value of mainstream brands.

The potential with an educative approach is to change the market. When people appreciate the benefits to the environment and to their own health of eating organic foods, then the ‘premium’ no longer seems like simply ‘paying extra’. It is a new common sense. And that’s because it is creating a separate cognitive category. In some senses you could describe this as a process of creating meta brands. The other day I chose organic wine, partly because I’d been reading about the damage to soil from the intensive alternatives in French wine production, partly because I’d heard (probably an urban myth) that it doesn’t give you a hangover, but mostly because of that classic dilemma which FMCG branding was invented to solve; an overwhelming choice, within which ‘the organic red’ gave me a way of short circuiting consideration and getting on with my life.

Where next for green retail? I suspect that ‘paying a premium’ may be missing a bigger sustainability problem that arises from the damage done by ‘cheap’. The problems with intensive farming across the board to the lowest possible prices may substantially outweigh the benefits from ‘ethical consumerism’. When there is a race to the bottom, principles get sacrificed for prices. The global food industry – as forthcoming WWF report will highlight - is at the forefront of environmental damage. One third of all net CO2 emissions are due to deforestation, largely to clear land to grow cheap soy, palm oil and other commodity crops. The loss of biodiversity, the water use and so on of simple ingredients like sugar are staggering. Global farming also provides a livelihood for 2 billion people, many living in poverty and still being screwed by free market prices. And the recent rush to invest in developing world farming land (in response to higher food prices) raises issues around food sovreignity; the right to feed your own people, before exporting cash crops – biofuels being one example of profit and hunger in confrontation. Meanwhile, on the subject of false economies, one third of all food bought in the UK is wasted (according the government WRAP) campaign. And some of this waste must be due to excessive ‘2 for 1’ type promotions.

Of course it would be a brave mainstream retailer today that turned its back on ‘cheap’. It will take much more substantial education for a start. You'd need to create the sort of awareness around 'cheap' groceries that exists around 'junk' food. And would stand more of a chance if real economies – for instance refills and concentrates – substituted for some of the historical unethical short cuts that have been taken. But if shopping and green are to be true partners going forward then addressing the other 95% of what people buy (than ethical goods) is probably the better bet. The prediction by Fast Company magazine of much broader sustainable labelling and rating schemes (for instance across a whole retailer range) as a top trend of 2009 looks pretty well placed.

New article for mediacat

Climate Change as a Brand

Climate change is going to get renewed attention in the media this year. The main reason for this, apart from ongoing news about melting ice caps, forest fires and freak storms, is the meeting in Copenhagen where representatives of 170 countries will attempt a new international agreement to limit global carbon emissions. Add to that the ‘green new deal’ initiatives, where green energy infrastructure jobs are created to stimulate economies. It's likely to be a year when climate change is going to be driven as an agenda by politicians, whereas for the last 3 or 4 years business seemed to have taken the lead.

The origin of climate change, at least in common usage, was a most unlikely place - the policy team of the Bush administration in the USA. They preferred the term to its predecessor "Global Warming". The USA was dragging it's heels about signing up to Kyoto. Global warming was too definitive in acknowledging that there was a problem that urgently needed fixing. Climate Change was a more neutral position. It said "there may be an issue and we have scientists looking into it". It was always intended in other words as a neutral, scientific, "leave if to us and we will get back to you" sort of brand. Not a public cause which people needed to rally behind like Live Aid and Make Poverty History. We have inherited a brand that was designed to neutralize rather than mobilize. A brand about measurement rather than action. Yes it is memorable, thanks partly to the alliteration. But compare it with the more evocative language around the economy; the credit crunch or the great depression... The poetics of branding does matter, especially as it acts at a mostly unconscious level.

How about the brand awareness? Here at least some success. Surveys across the world show that about 90% are aware of climate change. And about 80% are concerned. A much lower percentage, usually around 30%, believe that their own actions have any impact (actually the motor car alone in my country accounts for 11% of total emissions). And a lower percentage still (in the West), according to HSBC's Climate Confidence survey believe that climate change is a problem which we can solve. The net result - high awareness of a catastrophic problem, but also a feeling of powerlessness and a lack of any hope.

Compare climate change to another recent apocalyptic brand: the y2k bug. It's hard to remember today how this seized the public, political and commercial imagination in 1999. Half of all the money spent that year on IT (a consultant told me) was spent on y2k compliance - ie making sure that when the date changed your systems didn't shut down and lose their data, or stop controlling your nuclear power stations! Here we have something which really did mobilize people: it was not just a branded problem it was a branded ‘fix it or else’. And also I like the fact that it was based on a number. It reminds me in some ways of recent attempts to brand “350”. This stands for “350 parts per million”, what James Hansen of NASA thinks is “the red line” (ie the safe limit) in atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Rather worryingly we passed this line in the 1980s. And it takes about 40 years for CO2 to produce actual warming. So we could already be in trouble we now cant avert. And the need to reduce CO2 means taking some out of the atmosphere.

The Y2K Bug also had a deadline. It wasn't a problem "someday". There was a count down. The nearest thing to this in the environmental scene is peak oil: fossil fuels being a finite resource. Whether you think the affordable (taking little energy to extract and hence high net yield) oil will last another 3 years or 30 years, it will still run out one day. And when it does we had better be ready. In fact we had better be ready long before. The slightest global shortage can lead to local hoarding and sudden energy crises in regions (China springs to mind) most reliant on imports. As a result Peak Oil has aleady proved to be a more powerful mobiliser of governments and communities, such as the rapidly spreading transition town movement (400 towns have signed up by now) whereby local citizens create their own "energy descent plan".

Peak Oil still sounds like something (transition towns aside) that the government needs to plan for on a society wide level. Sweden already plans to be oil independent by 2020, using biofuels from forest waste instead. The ideal version of climate change would actually be about human change not policy change though. No elected government in the world will do anything but defend the status quo. Unless the people decide they want more. Climate change is a side product of a human civilization in opposition to nature. That is not a contest we can win, and if the climate doesn’t get us water, food, lost biodiversity and so on will. What many in sustainability talk about is building a new world system. John Elkington, the environmentalist, calls this ‘the Phoenix Economy” ie being reborn from the ashes of the old. Most transition to new social orders have involved dramatic and painful and violent collapse, from the Aztecs to the Soviet State. It seems like this is the precondition for human’s accepting change, otherwise the resistance is too great – ‘why should I give up my car?’

I think the best chance for climate change as a brand is to be more about empathy and co-operation; humanitarian and heartfelt concern for fellow human beings and endangered species. And the emergence of a new core value of partnership with nature and each other. The net result of climate change is failed crops, drought, flooding, spiraling food prices, increased poverty, spreading diseases. And many of the solutions lie not with grand energy infrastructure, but actually better farming. One third of the net carbon emissions are due to deforestation, to plant cash crops like soy and palm. Studies in the USA have found that organic farming, because it doesn’t kill a particular yeast in soil that absorbs carbon and fixes it for 1000+ years, can be a great carbon sink. Better farming with healthy soil could hence be the solution to removing CO2 too. Whereas conventional intensive agriculture using chemicals derived from oil damages this healing property of soil and creates huge emissions of its own. Add that to moves for less meat in our diets and the fact that 2 billion of the world’s poorest people are slaving in the field to fill our supermarkets. I’m not saying we all need to go back to farming, it’s more about recognising that it is ‘the base of our pyramid’. We can manufacture robots, but we can still only grow food. It’s about time we took notice of farming again, and the farmer as sustainability hero is a great archetypal story – it’s about the long suffering little guy stepping in to save the day. I don’t a have ‘name’ for this new brand yet but the spirit of it might be to paraphrase an old song: ‘we’ve got the whole world in our hands’. Every time you buy a packet of sugar you are making some vital decisions about the future of the world.

Retail Reuse Recycle

Report of a lovely sounding new green living at home store - Green Depot - in New York over at PSFK

ps on a completely different tip I see Microsoft have just announced they will open a retail chain too. There was a rumour last year they were negotiating for this listed building bank site in Brooklyn (the image is an artists impression of what the result could look like). Turning old banks into useful retail/living spaces could of course be a whole new trend in architecture & retrofit can be a very green model for a start.


Microsoft just hired a senior Walmart executive, I hope they plan to bring over the Walmart sustainability focus too. Apple got low marks yet again in the new climate counts report, so maybe this really could be for Microsoft to pick up and run with? :J

(Draft) Article for Sublime Magazine - "Work In Progress" Themed Issue

Article (aged 1 month)

My son Cosmo (aged 6) and his dad (aged 44) have been playing a game recently. I suggest an object and he has to guess how long it has been around. It’s a fun game, interspersed with giggling about events like the invention of the flushable toilet (aged 120). And how in much older times you had to watch out for Londoners emptying chamber pots out of city windows. Or the gory news that before guns (aged 500) and cannons (700), battles consisted mostly of people at very close quarters hacking at each other with swords and spears. We get back as far as writing (aged 5500), cities (aged 15,000) or farming (aged 23,000). And Cosmo quite rightly exclaims: “well that’s not very long is it?”

No indeed. It’s not very long at all. 23,000 years. 920 generations. (For some bacteria 920 generations would take only just over 6 day’s worth of our time).

This all falls into a span of time Cosmo would describe as ‘countable’. That is to say, you could - if you really wanted to - count back all the way to your ‘great, great, great… great grandfather’ who was alive at those times. You can’t count back to what he calls ‘the old days’, when stone tools first appeared (aged 2.4 million). Not unless you were a very, very patient 6 year old. But most of our world is very countable indeed.

So how come we can’t just change things? The market research says that people simply cannot imagine life without a nice modern car, without central heating, without mobile phones, TV, foreign holidays… all things that no-one would have expected to have a few generations ago. Cosmo, in point of fact, loves hearing the stories of when I was his age and used to stay with my grandmother who had an outside toilet, no TV, no central heating, and certainly no video games – but who still used to marvel to me about the scientific miracle that was her transistor radio. ‘Whatever next?’ she used to say.

‘Whatever next?’ indeed. What is more depressing than all those things we could not imagine living without, is that we also can’t seem to imagine a future which is better than now. Where new solutions will be found to the ancient problems of daily life; of trouble and toil, comfort and stimulation; the love of fresh air, natural scenes, open landscapes, of pottering, sharing ideas and chitchat. Can we really not imagine a better life than the one we live today?

In the America of the 1930s the dream of a leisure society took hold; with a three day working week and ample opportunities to learn, socialise, bring up a family. It’s the side of the ‘great depression’ story that is seldom told, blotted out by the mechanisation of wartime production and the treadmill of post war ‘productivity’. As Susan Currell wrote of this time: “Of all the problems that faced America in the 1930s, only leisure seemed to offer a panacea for the rest.” 25% unemployment? Why don’t we all just work less of the time, and pursue learning, family, self development, hobbies, entertainments?

In the 1950s another utopia took hold, this time the ‘space age’. The media were full of images of flying cars, domestic robots, holiday homes on the moon. Where the 1930s dreams took their cue from the Great Depression, the 1950s combined consumerism, the space race and the power of television.

Imagine a new way of life today, one based on the challenges of sustainability. Not a descent, retreat or collapse. But an advance. One that will make our own homes look antiqued. As cluttered as a Victorian parlour. As mechanistic as the industrial age factories that modern architecture and design drew its inspiration from. In this future our clunky prosthetic technology has all but disappeared. But we will live more comfortably and healthily in homes which self-regulate and apply all sorts of clever ideas drawn from fields like bio-mimicry, to new ways of heating, cooking, sleeping, learning, communicating and once again reducing ‘the trouble and toil’ of daily life. One better suited to human rhythms and instincts than today’s machine homes. All of these new ideas will be beautiful. And they will create a more beautiful life. How will they capture the imagination if not? A home in this future will produce no waste, consume very little energy. But its excitement will come from the kind of living it supports, not its restrictions.

The quality of life agenda is slowly taking hold in mainstream politics. But we still perhaps need to wrest it from the clutches of the ‘back to nature’ brigade if it is to become the dream of our age. If all we can offer people is a shanty town or rustic hut, how can we complain when they cling onto what they have? If we aren’t all to go back to farming, we will still need an economy, cities, companies, shops and mass production; although all of these in very new forms.

Have we forgotten how to dream of a better life? My son hasn’t. He told me yesterday that he wishes ‘all the magic stories were true’. It’s dreams like those that led mankind to flying. (And okay that proved to be a mixed blessing. But what an achievement!) Can’t we accept that we are, unless we totally screw things up, at a very early stage of human civilisation? That we are quite an inventive species, when we put our minds to it? And can’t we realise that most of what we regard as permanent features, ‘the only way things can be’ are all so very fleeting in their recency? If the challenge of leaving things in a better state than we currently find them seem daunting, perhaps it’s just that we need to wrestle the planning back from the technocrats, and start imagining again?

Upcoming green marketing event

Regular readers will know about my fondness for Peterborough, the UK's 'environmental capital' and hopefully someday soon a transition town. They are now together with the chartered institute of marketing, hosting a green marketing conference and a very good day it is likely to be too. Here's the scoop:

Does marketing hold answers to the challenge of sustainable business?

With more and more businesses embracing sustainable practices, a conference in Peterborough next March will look at the role marketing can play in responding to the green agenda.

With the green agenda gathering pace, organisations are assessing their impact on the environment. They are also looking for opportunities to establish green credentials that can forge relationships, build brands and increase bottom line results.

But responding to this challenge isn’t straightforward. It demands a deep understanding of the issues and potential pitfalls, as well as the opportunities. There is a growing feeling that marketing can lead the way in meeting the challenge - but is that really the case?

To further the debate on the subject - and provide ideas and inspiration to anyone attending - this national one-day conference looks at how organisations can go beyond basic ‘eco-friendly’ claims and instead integrate sustainability policies with wider corporate social responsibility programmes.

John Luff, a former Head of Global Brand and of Global CSR at BT is speaking at the conference. John says, "If you’re looking for a lecture on CSR, don’t come to hear me speak at this conference! But if you’re looking for the ammunition to help you make sustainable marketing a reality for your own brand, I'll show you a way forward through greater understanding - a way to think multi-dimensionally about your brand.

“No hugging trees - CSR and sustainable marketing is about the economics of being in business. The most corporately irresponsible business is one that goes out of business.”

Conference highlights…
• Join the debate: does marketing really hold the key to sustainable business?
• Talk directly to people who have made green marketing work for them.
• Find out how to avoid ‘greenwash’ and make meaningful business decisions that benefit you and the planet.

Key speakers…
• Jonathon Porritt, Programme Director, Forum for the Future and Chairman, UK Sustainable Development Commission
• John Grant, Author of the Green Marketing Manifesto
• Ed Gillespie from Futerra Creative Director and Co-founder, Futerra Sustainability Communications,
• John Luff, international consultant on sustainable marketing
• Ecover, environmentally friendly cleaning products.
• Royal Mail, greening the fleet, making direct mail more planet friendly.


The conference takes place on 12 March 2009 in Peterborough. Prices for the event start from £140. More information and booking facilities can be found at www.greenmarketingconference.co.uk

Mutual Admiration Society

Many thanks to Joe Pine for his kind words. Joe as most of you know wrote the hugely influential "Experience Economy" (a book which came out the same year as my first and outsold it about a thousand to one), then Markets of One (mass customisation) and his latest with Jim Gilmore his consulting business partner on "Authenticity". It's not an easy subject; ask any theorist - for instance read Umberto Eco's 'travels in hyperreality' or academics like Slavov Zizek about the impossible quest for 'the real thing'. The difficulty for us is compounded by a bigger difficulty in marketing strategy, which is that we don't really know how to talk about the role played by aesthetics except to say 'we know it when we see it'. Yet it is clear that if you line up 100 brands (and their associated services and experiences) probably the key factor that defines their value is authenticity. Brands like innocent, Nokia, Google 'have it'. Quite a few British media brands have it (Guardian, Penguin, BBC, Economist, FT, Wallace & Grommit...) And I think the book is right to point to these being the product of authentic business processes and cultures; just as the best of traditional goods come from a certain region, from a craft which relies on a community with very specific values, customs and traditions. If it's the key determinant of value how do you manage it - or in this books terminology 'render it'? That's the purpose of the book and it has some very good advice. This is one of the few marketing/business books I'd recommend reading at the moment (vs there are so many good new books on sustainability, economics, green business etc. I can hardly keep up). I love the fact that it isn't trying to boil down the subject to inauthentic versions of authenticity; walking a firm line between keeping it simple, but not pretending its simple. In most of the projects I have ever worked on this question of finding an authentic line through a subject is pretty much the main one. We all know it is. And I suspect half the time we choose projects and clients because they already have a capability of 'getting it' too, because oh boy is it difficult to retrofit within a culture that doesn't get it or value it. Authenticity isnt the same thing as ethics, for instance Ministry of Sound is an authentic beast, but it doesn't have a tree-hugging or wet liberal bone in its body. But authenticity is even more sharp as an issue - a knife edge - in the green marketing space (vs greenwash). So it's very relevant to us and it's good to see Joe pushing companies to go green as part of being authentic. Anyway Joe's one of my favourite business authors so it was a huge pleasure to catch him again recently in Belgium. (By way of excuse - I didn't blog about this originally partly because it was nearly xmas and partly you might have thought I was name dropping!) :J

Sign of the Times

Despite last year's launch of their Earth Day accessories range, gross sales of the 'iconic' Barbie doll were down 21% this Christmas (ie last quarter 08). Overall the parent group Mattel posted profits 46% down. I don't usually post on brand misfortunes - and have nothing against the toy category per se, I think the world still does need a childhood (see the fascinating new report from the children's society on this btw, via BBC) - but the hubris in this case is too tempting, when the FT reports that Mattel "had an upbeat outlook in the face of deteriorating conditions before Christmas, with an executive suggesting parents would continue to buy toys for children by cutting household spending on other items."

Like what? Food? Fuel?

The Great Breakdown

There is an interesting exchange going on Professor Willian Buiter (LSE)'s blog at the FT. 'We must avoid protectionism' was the only message with any passion behind it, from an otherwise drab and washed up Davos. It's really hard to place yourself next to this power word; the most exploitative acts of modern economic colonialism such as speculating in food land while the word starves, the race to the bottom in global labour exploitation, the gutting of economies in both processes ('Ugandan coffee is too expensive at 10p/Kg, let's open up Vietnam instead...'). Protectionism is one of those words like 'freedom' - it's hard to disagree with at one level - but to side with it is to endorse acts like invasion, in this case by the IMF.

Anyway they are all much too up on their fiscal policy for me to post my 2c over there. The really interesting thing in the thread is that there is a clear divide emerging between those trying to shore up the system with more of the same, vs those who think this is quite mad. As one put it "The drunk is puking up blood but the solution is more whiskey?" In that spirit for what it's worth this is what I added to the comments:

"Can I propose a change in terminology? Can we not call this ‘The Great Breakdown’? In metaphorical terms, the current system is not in a little ‘dip’ (a recession), nor in a melancholy episode of life losing its meaning, interest and pleasure (depression). Rather it seems to be collapsing as the direct result of its own neurotic, self-destructive, tragic logic (ie colloquially - a breakdown). I agree with many of the points about the madness of more of the same (and can only add that we face a far larger crisis in climate change, one directly coupled to the economic growth that we seem so desperate to restore). There is also maybe more hope admitting that this is The Great Breakdown. As Wilfred Bion, the psychiatrist, used to say of his patients; ‘you never know if they are breaking down or breaking through’." Greenormal

Message from BarCampBank (I am hoping to go - do blog it on)

Dear Innovators,

It's been a wild six months since the first London BarCampBank - the collapse of Lehman Brothers, sterling falling off a cliff along with the stock markets and even the man in the street talks about the credit crunch now - so we thought it was time for London's second BarCampBank. As before we will bring together technologists and industry insiders for a day of networking and discussion of the impact of emerging technologies on the financial space. So if you are an innovator, a disruptor or a professional of the banking and finance industry, if you are excited by or just curious about all the innovations that the new technologies could bring to the banking and finance world or if you want to present a project, confront your ideas or just echo lively debates with your own experience then you should definitely consider joining us at BarCampBankLondon2.

More info and the wiki for the event can be found at http://barcamp.org/BarCampBankLondon2
Registration takes place on eventbrite: http://bcblondon2.eventbrite.com/

We hope you can join us again for an interesting day examining how meaningful innovations can solve the financial mess we are in right now.

Regards,

The BarCampBank London team.

Draft Article for the Marketer

What If All Publicity Were Good Publicity?

Most reading this will agree that ‘it pays to advertise’. With today’s accountability we can be sure that (in most cases) marketing promotions make more money than they cost. If some in a market use these tools and others don’t, the effects can be particularly dramatic (Accenture using TV ads in the 1990s is one example I have written about). What if we restricted the use of advertising (and other channels) by those sectors, products and companies with a poor environmental or ethical profile? Wouldn’t that create a compelling business case for doing the right thing? And reward those businesses and brands prepared to invest in better business models and policies?

If that sounds far fetched, how is it different from banning cigarette advertising, or banning junk food advertising to children? As with products that create a massive healthcare bill, environmentally destructive products also create a huge public bill. Some already create large public costs (2.4% of all landfill waste is disposable nappies – source Green Consumer Guide). Others are contributors to climate change, which will cost a great deal more money to mitigate (according to Stern and others) if left unchecked.

This debate has already been raging at the Guardian for several years. George Monbiot publicly challenged his own management over accepting advertising that “makes the destruction of the biosphere seem socially acceptable”. The Guardian News and Media group recently polled its readership and found that 60% felt it should refuse advertising for ‘fashion brands that use cheap foreign labour’, and 40% for ‘high emission cars’. Meanwhile commercial TV in Belgium already offers a 30% airtime discount to advertisers with clear green credentials. Another option discussed by Joel Makower (in Strategies for the Green Economy) is a return to the Good Housekeeping Seal of the 1900s, whereby every advertiser’s product was guaranteed by the media. In the present case the media might run green breaks (or sections) with every product claim certified ‘greenwash free’. This would require independent verification, but there are numerous existing (labelling) standards, independent rating studies, NGOs and consultancies to step into that breach.

The ‘freedom to advertise’ lobby will object to my suggestion. ‘If a product is harmful then ban the product not the advertising’ they will say. ‘Our media are dependent on advertising revenues. It’s a free country. People can make their own minds up, they don’t need us doing it for them. The recession and declines in advertising revenue are hitting us hard enough already, without making it worse’…. Many of the same arguments were formerly applied to defending advertising against the tobacco bans. Ultimately we will need regulation, consumer pressure and leadership, to combat just making money selling any old crap. Retailers have shown it can be done with light bulbs, GM foods, palm oil, plastic bags, patio heaters and so on. On the question of ad revenues, it’s quite likely commercial media will need bailing out by government. I would commend this ‘editing choice’ strategy as a condition of any taxpayer funded subsidies. It’s just one example of how we can take advantage of the recession to think more creatively about the way that we order and manage society, and make a few irreversible changes for the better.